


Rook

by veery (mniotilta)



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Character Study, Chess, Corvids, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-25
Updated: 2017-10-25
Packaged: 2019-01-22 19:12:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12488872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mniotilta/pseuds/veery
Summary: A character study of Goro as told through chess and the behavior of crows.Major spoilers for Persona 5.





	Rook

**Author's Note:**

> A few notes that are entirely skippable but have to do with the technical side and definitions re: bird associations throughout this and is extremely nitpicky, but just in case there’s someone reading this who is familiar with birds re: Japan, I want to defend some of my creative decisions. 
> 
> A disclaimer that I am not very knowledgeable on the behavior and ecology of corvids (crows and related species) in Japan; most of the behaviorisms that I’m drawing from are found in species from North America, and the only species that Japan shares with NA is the Common Raven. There is possibility that I am committing natural history errors due to this, but I assume that—as corvids—there is a fair amount of similarity despite being continents away. 
> 
> That being said too, I am not just contrasting Goro with the two species that are dubbed “crow” in Japan (Carrion Crow and Thick-billed Crow), but upon the family Corvidae as a whole, partially because in Japanese, the translations of their common Japanese names do not always correlate as to how we refer to them in English. For example, the Eurasian Jackdaw is not what I would call “crow” nor does the name have the word crow in it, but in Japanese it is referred to as a crow (西黒丸鴉 / “Western Black Circle Crow”), which is not wrong because Jackdaws are classified as corvids. The takeaway from this is 1. bird names do not make sense in any language whatsoever, they just don't which causes a lot of confusion across languages/continents 2. Japanese does not make as of a clear distinction between corvids species in same way English does, so therefore 3. All corvids are fair play be they be called crows or not.
> 
> In the secondary notes at the bottom there is further discussion on what aspects I am drawing from and explaining some behavioral stuff to those unfamiliar.
> 
> Being familiar with the societal implications of Goro's status as an illegitimate child in Japan is something that should already be familiar with people reading this, but if not you probably should research that, I'm not going to take the time here to do so and I am also not the person to really delve into that issue, it's not really my place nor do I know the breadth of everything it involves. There's some good meta posts on tumblr/other explanations I have seen that go over it and you should be able to find those pretty easily.
> 
> Also if you find any major typos let me know, I edited this as best I could but I wrote the majority of this fic half-asleep and I am editing it in similar conditions, and given this is so long I am sure I have missed some.

He doesn’t own his own chess set—he has nobody to play against—so he absentmindedly plays the game on his phone during transit, on the early winter mornings when his fingers feel numb no matter how hard he tries to warm them. He recognizes the computer’s moves as if it is a friend, there is only so much randomization that can be programmed into any game, only so much deviation. There are some days he zones out, clicking and moving his pieces in patterns he’s done over and over again, the muscle memory is there, and even without thought, a winner’s banner is displayed across his phone’s screen in an explosion of confetti. Do you want to play again, the screen glows, and he decides to pocket it and wait patiently for the next stop, closing his eyes to momentarily rest.  
  
He is surrounded by people, hardly having any room for himself during the morning rush. They’re all clad in black, in thick winter coats and business suits, standing gloomily and dreaming of spring, a season that seems so far away when the temperature has dipped to near record lows during the past week. They unload and load again, onto the subway car in herds, together, and while there is momentarily comfort in being surrounded by others, shared warmth in shared misery, there is no continuation once the doors open and the flock scatters.  
  
Sometimes he’ll close his eyes and walks tightrope along the borderline of sleep and waking, basking in that collective furnace of the people surrounding him, and he daydreams that he is being embraced, that he’s comfortable in bed curled up against someone, that there are fingers interlocking with his, but then the loudspeaker comes on, pulling him out of his fantasies, and suddenly he is alone and cold again as he steps off the car and onto the platform.  
  
He wraps his scarf tighter around his neck, sighs, and goes to his next destination.

* * *

Even in the city he hears crows calling, weaving around skyscrapers as if they are but trees. They have adapted to this world of concrete and metal, managing to survive in an inorganic jungle. He will be dubbed Crow in the future and it will be more than fitting for him, the name befitting a scavenger, one who is given discarded scraps and makes do with what little is given to them.  
  
Occasionally Goro Akechi passes by roadkill being torn apart and feasted upon by crows. It is they who do the dirty work of cleaning up—for finding usefulness in a corpse—as a way to get ahead in life. It’s admirable, in a way, uplifting, even, that even garbage birds that are given nothing but garbage to eat still manage to scrape by and keep living in this society through their cleverness and resourcefulness. He is much the same way, a discarded person living in an unforgiving world dealt a poor hand who has managed to build his own niche of survivability.  
  
But even the crows have each other, they have someone, and part of their reason for success is due to their camaraderie. On the coldest of evenings when Goro is walking through the city sometimes he comes across parks that are filled with dozens of crows, hundreds even, flying to roost together in old ancient trees that are still standing tall. From a distance it seems as if the tree has covered in pitch black leaves that ruffle and shift and move as organically as the ones that will come in spring. Individuals may forage in groups or by themselves, but together, in the evening, there is a home for all of them, as they bundle up together and anticipate the frigid night.  
  
One day in late spring, when Goro was a child, he saw a handful of crows on the side of the road, agitated, screaming, diving down and jabbing at something on the ground. Upon closer inspection, he discovered that it was another crow, a young one, barely fledged with baby fluff and short-tailed, who was cawing, begging, demanding food and attention from its parents and older siblings. He watched, in horror, as the other crows beat it to death. Why, he wondered, and ever curious, he sought out answers.  
  
Diseased, he read, or injured beyond repair. They will turn on their own children if there is no other choice. A child who will never be able to fly, a child that has become infested with parasites and illness, a child who is rotting, being eaten by maggots from the inside out—it will never survive, it will continue to cry out in hunger and pain, risking the survivorship of the whole family, and if your child is rotting, dying ever so slowly, it is better to end it than let it continue to suffer. It is terrible, but it is the only mercy that a wild bird can give its child, its child that it loved so very much.  
  
They say corvids hold funerals for their fallen, holding vigil. They keep watch, they are always keeping watch on each other, because nobody can survive alone.  
  
So what is a crow who is very much alive and well to do without a flock?  
  
For nature is cruel, but society is even crueler. 

* * *

“Do you like chess?”  
  
“I’m sorry?  
  
“Your phone, I couldn’t help but notice,” Sojiro gestures at his phone, sitting on the countertop, idly awaiting his next move.  
  
“Oh! Yes, yes I do. I think it’s fun.”  
  
“I have an old set somewhere around here.”  
  
“It would be nice to play against someone in person, if you are ever able to find it.”  
  
“I’ll keep an eye out for it, then,” he smiles, and that is the end of their conversation that day.   
  
It makes him happy.

* * *

On his birthday, he goes about his day as he would any other, smiling, always smiling, pleasant, smelling of fruit.  
  
“It’s my birthday,” he brings up in conversations, earnestly, proud but not arrogant, the same way a child runs up to their parent after they’ve drawn a picture. Look at me, praise me, give me some ounce of affection, he smiles, and they wish him well, they wish him a happy sixteenth birthday, but it’s not enough, and he feels hollow. He receives no presents, no offerings, and a handful of words. He doesn’t know why he expected this year to be any different. It’s always the same.  
  
He stops by the store on his way home and carries home a small cupcake, encased in a small white box with a red ribbon tied around it. He unboxes it and fishes around in a drawer for a match and a misshapen candle, dilapidated, with puddles of hardened wax surrounding the wick. He lights it, and momentarily the warmth of the candle fills him with a sense of joy.  
  
He sings happy birthday to himself, quietly, out of tune. The candlewax drips. He reckons that he’ll need to buy a new one a few days before his eighteenth birthday—the wick will be burned to ash by then, and the candle reduced to an unrecognizable mass.

Happy birthday, he sings, and blows out the candle.

* * *

“You are unwanted,” those words ring in his head from the moment he wakes up to the moment he goes to bed. There are dreams he has that are an escape, a temporarily relief, and then there are others where the constant batter continues. He’s gotten good at ignoring it, tuning it out, but on particularly bad days it is too loud, the screaming is too loud to ignore. It’s not just him, no, it’s not just his own thoughts, it’s the way that people look at him, how people treat him once they know, and he hates it. He hates that this is the one thing he can’t change about himself, the circumstances of his birth are not a thing he can erase with good grades and upstanding behavior.  
  
It’s not my fault, he wants to say, it’s not my fault that I’m a bastard child.

It was a mistake.  
  
I am a mistake.  
  
He is a bad omen, a harbinger wherever he goes, the poster child for what those privileged think is corrupting the nation. It is not his baggage, but he still has to carry it. A crow is sinless, but has sin thrust upon it by others. A bird does not peer into the depths of a shiny mirror and see the face of a nuisance. On some mornings the sight of his own face reflected is enough to make his heart and stomach twist in hatred.  
  
Goro does not deserve this, and he knows it, he does not deserve the sticks and stones that assault him.  
  
He watches a group of kids chase a flock of crows picking the bones clean of a dead cat in the road, hurling rocks in their direction. He understands the reaction of disgust, of resentment, of things foreign, of things that are not understood.  
  
But crows can fly away, their harsh warning calls swirling through the air as they yell danger, danger, this human is dangerous, prejudiced, and they can escape their unwanted labels, shedding them as easily as they do feathers.  
  
He can only stand there, still as a statue, and let it pile on and on.  
  
He wishes he could molt it all away.

* * *

Akira Kurusu has hair the color of a raven’s throat, messy and unruly no matter how much he tries to tame it. There’s an amorphous quality to it, and Akira himself claims that it doesn’t matter how often he brushes it, no matter if he gets his locks to fall into a neat arrangement, one turn of his head is enough to spring them back. It suits him as a person, Goro thinks, for as soon as he thinks that he’s figured out how his hair behaves, it does something surprising, contrary, much like its owner.  
  
For the most part, they only catch fleeting glimpses of each other, but there’s something about Akira that Goro finds dazzling. He’s a mystery that Goro can’t figure out, he can’t quite pin down his frame of mindset, his behaviors. It’s an elaborate dance, the brief debates that they have, counterpoint after counterpoint, synchronous in their quick wit. It’s mildly hostile, but Akira mischievously grins before coming out of left field and Goro always flashes him a confident smile when he knows that he’s trapped him. But he always manages to slip away, just by a hair, be it because his next train has come, or that his phone rings, or that he finds a crack in the foundation of Goro’s argument to slip away, unharmed.  
  
Today he has the last laugh, putting in the final word. The doors open on the subway car and he slips in with ease, without even saying goodbye, and Goro nearly follows him inside as he opens his mouth to begin speaking.  
  
Standing near the window, as the door closes and the car begins to move away from the boarding platform, Akira knocks on the glass that separates them, even though he knows he still has Goro’s attention.  
  
And there, Akira sticks out his tongue, tauntingly, childishly, and before long Goro finds himself staring, dumbfounded, at the empty tracks below.

* * *

The more he plays chess with Sojiro the more that he wishes he grew up with a man like him as his father, but he’s unsure if that wanting is because he truly believes that Sojiro would be good at parenting or if it’s just because Sojiro treats him like he’s human—his reputation, his background, his flaws—he’s judged for none of it. Most of the time Sojiro loses, sometimes they make small talk, and always does Goro tip him well. Leblanc is the only place where he can check his baggage at the door.  
  
“That was a close one,” Goro says, laughing, resetting the pieces. “You almost got me there. Should we play again?”  
  
Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t. Today, the set is put away, as it’s close to closing hour, and Sojiro mentions he has to go home early today. Goro understands, and he drains the rest of his cup quickly, gathers up his things, and makes his way towards the door.  
  
“When is your birthday?”  
  
He stops, midstep, and turns.  
  
“What?”  
  
“Your birthday,” Sojiro asks, “when is it?”  
  
“The second of June,” Goro replies. He wonders what his face must look like to Sojiro, for he is unsure whether to smile, whether to raise an eyebrow, confusion, skepticism, shock—and is that a little bit of creeping happiness he feels cracking over his face, turning the corners of his lips upwards? Or is it just out of habit, the facade of a man who pretends to be content with his life, with his choices.  
  
“Ah, we missed it then,” Sojiro continues to wipe down the countertop. “Next year, you should come by on your birthday, if you don’t have any plans. Coffee and a meal, on the house. You’re a good patron, you always tip well. It’s the least I can do.”  
  
“I’ll… have to take you up on that. Thank you.”  
  
He is dumbfounded. He doesn’t realize until he’s made it all the way home that he’s shaking, jittery, with a feeling he cannot describe accurately. He’s still shaking, staring at his trembling hands as he stands in the shower, letting hot water run down his back. He realizes that he’s happy, so happy that he feels like he’s going to vomit. After he showers, he feels so ill that he doesn’t trust himself to be too far from the toilet. He makes a quick run to get his briefcase so that he can maybe get some work done in his sorry state, but he just stares blankly, unfocused, unable to read any of the words.  
  
“Next year,” he whispers to himself.  
  
If there even is a next year for me.  
  
He falls asleep in the bathroom, propped up against the wall, only awakened from a phone call from Sae the next morning, wondering where he is—he’s late for his own meeting.

* * *

He catches a slight cold, trying to shake it off, but two days some slight coughing and sniffles turns into a full blown illness. It is times like this where he wishes—more than usual—that he wasn’t alone, that there was somebody he could rely on, someone to help him. It’s difficult playing nurse to yourself. He wants to get out of bed as little as possible, but he has to get more water to drink, he has to make himself food, he is the one who has to get himself together and go to the corner store to get more medication when he runs out. He is weak, the world is swirling, but he manages to get home just fine. He’s always fine by himself, it’s always been that way, but what he would give, what he would sacrifice, for a shoulder to lean on, to at least have a tiny bit of help when he’s down.  
  
The trip to the store exhausted the little energy he had. He curls up in bed and strokes his own hair to comfort himself—a habit he’s had ever since childhood—softly, softly, artificially generating his own affection to lull himself to sleep.  
  
He is the king of his own castle, but a one person kingdom is not sustainable.

* * *

Work gives him purpose and he does not take work lightly. He arrives at the crime scene and flashes his badge—a motion that a superior officer shakes his head. “We know who you are, Akechi,” he sighs. “I’m only following formality, sir,” he smiles.  
  
He’s briefed. He knew before he got here that it wasn’t one of his crimes, one of his killings, which puts him in a better mood. There’s an actual puzzle to solve here, not a puzzle to create, and his eyes dance around the room. He asks to see the bodies, putting a fresh pair of disposable gloves on, and they leave him to it as he steps out of the main room and into another. They warn him that it’s gruesome, but after a while you become numb to death, numb to killing. You have to be, you have to be numb, when you’ve killed so many.  
  
The first several of times Shido had him murder, he wasn’t composed enough, he was too emotional, to nervous, his fingers shook before he pulled the trigger and when he got back home, got back to his apartment, all he could do was cry. He still feels bad, he still feels remorse, his stomach still churns when he kills innocents, but what is a man to do? You do what you can to survive, to get ahead in life when there are very few options available to you. You must use the dead to your advantage, yes, you must, for that’s what nature does, every fallen blossom and every dying tree and every piece of carrion is used by others. You must eat the flesh of the fallen in order to survive. So what if he used his own killings to get him this gig—he is only following the natural way, he is only being resourceful—this is what he tells himself every morning.  
  
He tells this to himself, but it hardly makes him feel better.  
  
In the bedroom lies a family, brutally murdered.  
  
He was warned, but he still flinches.    
  
It doesn't matter how many you’ve killed, or how many you’ve seen killed. There are some deaths that hurt you more than others, and while the majority start to blur together after a while, becoming nameless, faceless, feelingless, this is one that will stay with him, this will be one that he will stay up late into the night trying to crack, that he is determined to solve, determined to make an attempt to right a wrong. Sae will admire his determination, but with hesitance, with annoyance even.  
  
Death follows him wherever he goes, and he follows death where it takes him. He is a modern crow, one who does not follow armies into battle to eat the fallen, but one who gets calls and text messages that usher him to come see corpses, taking trains and riding his bike to get there. And then he gets another message, one from Shido, that tells him of a new target. And off he is again, flying through the night, in search for the next one to fall. He chases death, and death chases him.  
  
He has his own death wish. Most of the time, he truly wants to be dead, and if it wasn’t for the desire for revenge, for retribution, he wouldn’t be standing alongside Sae, but at her feet, in a body bag.  
  
Taking Shido down will be satisfying, to finally be the puppeteer instead of the puppet, the warden instead of the prisoner. But before that can happen, he will have to cause more death.  
  
He can’t wait to see his father’s face when it happens.  
  
But for now, he does work that he actually enjoys, solving mysteries and bringing criminals to justice—real criminals, ones not obscured by his false truths—the same career path he would’ve chosen for himself if he had been born normal, too.

* * *

He comes to Leblanc often enough that he has a usual now, that he simply nods at Sojiro and Sojiro nods back, bringing him a drink and the chess set. On some days they have time to play together, other times the set simply sits unused on the counter and Goro fiddles with the pieces between sips.  
  
On this day, Akira is here too, helping out in the back, popping out occasionally, but it is only towards the tail end of Goro’s visit, as he is packing up his work and getting change for his bill, that Akira walks out, throws his apron over the back of the chair next to Goro, and sits expectantly. His hair is still the same mess, damp from either sweat or water from cleaning dishes, and he stares at Goro for a couple of a seconds before noticing he also has drops clinging to his glasses, which he cleans, with his shirt—an old ratty one that he often wears while working.

“Is there something—”  
  
“Sojiro says you play. I want to play with you.” He puts his glasses back on and blinks a couple of times, starting to set up the board.

“Isn’t it almost closing time?”  
  
Akira shrugs. “I don’t care. I’ll get you another cup. You’ll stay?”  
  
“… Sure,” Goro nods. He takes over the setup while Akira jumps out of his seat, refilling Goro’s drink, getting one for himself, and bringing down a very crinkled bag of cookies down from his room above, taking one out and dipping it in his drink and eating it before offering his opponent one.  
  
The first game is played almost entirely in silence, asides from the television playing idly in the background and the occasional crunch of Akira’s teeth as he pulls out more cookies to munch on. Midway through the game, Sojiro, announces that he is going home, that Leblanc is officially closed, but Goro can stay as long as Akira closes up and cleans up after them. Akira nods, and halfheartedly waves in acknowledgement of his orders. Sojiro leaves. The weatherman talks about the rain later this week. Goro tries to take a cookie but Akira snatches it out of his palm, smirking, and gives it back to him immediately after.

“You favor your rooks,” Akira says, near the end of their first game.  
  
“Could say the same about you and your bishops. Says a lot about you, I think.”  
  
“Oh?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
“The way bishops move—diagonally, instead of horizontally or vertically—is similar to how you come across as a person, zigzagging, keeping people guessing, defiant.”  
  
“Is that what you think of me?”  
  
“Am I not wrong?”  
  
Akira bites off half a cookie while dunking the other half into his coffee, choosing not to answer the question. “Then, you, as a rook, what does that make you?”  
  
“You want me to analyze myself?”  
  
“Oh yes, please do.”  
  
Goro leans forward, knocking away Akira’s last knight. “I would much rather hear your opinion. Check.”  
  
“Rooks,” he swallows, “move very straightforward, because they are ultimately bound by moving linearly. All pieces are restricted, but perhaps they are the most, despite them being such good pieces.”  
  
“And?”  
  
“Aren’t you bound just the same by society’s opinion of you, only moving in acceptable ways?”  
  
Goro, like Akira, chooses not to answer.

* * *

The lights are never not blinding, be they be those of a television set or the frenzied flashes of cameras as he strikes a simple pose for the newspaper. He states his name over and over again for the media, Goro Akechi, Goro Akechi, written with these characters, this way. It is through the lens, through the writings of others, that he feels adored, praised. Here he is, the genius detective prince, what an upstanding young man, a diamond in the rough seas of Japan. He feeds, like a vampire, consuming every compliment he is thrown. He reads the same article about himself fifty times, he records his news appearances and rewinds them. Every cheer, every word, it is nourishment of the finest grade, but it only lasts so long before he deletes the recordings and recycles the newspaper.  
  
He goes online to feed, too.  
  
There are message boards, discussions about him, and he casually skims through them at night in bed sometimes. The unfiltered, nameless babblings of society, without the niceties, without the formalities, this is perhaps a more accurate representation of the world than the mainstream. In some ways, it is better, in others, it is worse.  
  
“i love him,” a user says, “what he says makes alot of sense, and im glad to see my opinion shared.”  
  
“what an absolute loser, he should go die. :)”  
  
“did u hear that rumor that hes completely different irl than in the media? like actually a jerk.”  
  
“don't say that crap about my beautiful future husband!! he’s perfect”  
  
“i think i saw him once biking through my neighborhood!! idk anything about him and i don’t care about what he says but it’s always so cool to see someone famous. i wonder if i can get his autograph”  
  
“I just think he’s hot lol”  
  
It’s a confusing world, one of so many conflicting emotions. You want me to die, you person who doesn’t know me, who doesn’t know that sometimes I feel I would be better off dead? You, who base your opinions of me on rumors, on false rumors, you who probably post lies about so many others just to fuel the flames in a neverending witch hunt? You, who wants me, who wants me for my body, who is only in love with the idea of me? It’s comments like those ones that make him feel the most conflicted. How nice is it to have such proclamations, that somebody wants you, that wants every bit of you, when nobody has ever wanted you before? There’s the temptation, sometimes, on some days, where there’s part of him that has this insatiable need, where he wonders what would happen if he made contact, if he said “I am here if you want me,” and gave himself up so he could be held. But he never does, never will, for the fear of being rejected, abandoned, discarded, is a more powerful fear than his hunger can ever be.  
  
Despite the people who claim to want him, they don’t, they wouldn’t, they won’t.  
  
He keeps his exams, ones with perfect scores, pinned on his refrigerator, just to remind himself that he is worth something. It’s not enough.  
  
Popularity doesn’t make you less lonely, not when the masses don’t know the real you, when they would have difficulty accepting the real you.  
  
“He’s pretty,” the comments say.  
  
I’m not, I’m not pretty, he thinks, because pretty things are wanted.  
  
But never, not once, in any thread, has he seen the words, “I want to be Goro Akechi’s friend.”

* * *

Crows remember the faces of their enemies, the humans that have hurt them. That anger, that fear, is passed down from generation to generation, shaping the behavior of their children who have never once been wronged. It takes a lot to earn this bird’s trust, it takes little to earn yourself the torment of the entire flock.  
  
And that’s where he differs—his anger towards Shido is shared, but not as a collective. A single crow cannot take down an eagle, but the flurry of a murder can, chasing it off the highest mountain and banishing it from sight. When there are so many accosting you, it’s impossible to take any of them down. Safety in numbers.  
  
A single crow cannot safely take down goliath.  
  
He never said anything about his own safeness.  
  
Shido make pierce Goro’s body with his claws, but Goro will make sure that he brings him crashing to the ground, his harsh screams alerting everyone to the danger here.  
  
He may lie dying, bleeding out on the forest floor, but the entirety of Japan will bear witness to Shido’s truth, and hell hath no fury like the anger of a mob.

* * *

It’s a week later from their initial session. The same routine happened—Akira stops him before he leaves and invites him to play. They play past the closing hour and Akira brings cookies—this time, a fresh, unopened package, not wrinkled beyond belief. This time, while Goro sets the board, Akira sorts the cookies in two piles, equally, even splitting the last one in half to make it fair. He sets right to work on going through his pile.  
  
“Your nails are painted,” Goro states, an observational fact. Akira waves his hands, showing off the deep crimson of each finger, grinning slightly.  
  
“Are you jealous?”  
  
“Just noticing. That’s all. The paint is a little chipped.”  
  
“It’s been a few days. I’ve been working with my hands a lot.”  
  
“They’re still nice.”  
  
“Thanks. Not everyone sees it that way.”  
  
“A shame, really.”  
  
Akira nods, making the first move of the game and quickly flees upstairs just for a moment, coming down after a handful of seconds and placing a small bottle of nail polish on the counter, unscrewing the lid and taking time to touch up his nails before responding to Goro’s turn.  
  
“Want me to do yours?” Akira offers.  
  
“Not really. I have to be careful about how I present myself.”  
  
Akira blows across his fingertips, trying to quickly dry them.  
  
“If you ever change your mind, let me know.”

* * *

Do you realize how lonely an existence it must be, though? How isolating? To have grown up in a world that feels so empty, a world that continues to feel so empty, despite the city, bursting with life, with people? This social death is something that can only be carried, hidden away under your jacket, unseen, and yet it determines everything.  
  
The group chat is astounding to him. He spends hours pouring through the log, reading and rereading, not with some ulterior plan, a motive, there is no data here that will help him get to his goal, but because it is a curiosity. There are open chatrooms on the internet, and those too he has viewed, lurked in, especially ones that pertain to him, but this one is so personal. There is business—that is familiar, he has plenty of text threads that are business—but then there is this nonsense. There are images—Yusuke sends a photograph of the painting he is working on, Haru shows the growth of her flowers, Akira takes a selfie with Morgana with a “guess where I am”—and then discussion, compliments, wondering, musing, a guessing game. Ryuji tells everyone to look at this funny meme, Ann sends one in response after laughing about it, and Futaba spams more at rapid speed. He’ll have to put his phone away as he is briefed but he can feel it vibrating in his coat pocket. Makoto, upon waking up, feels that it is her duty to report to everyone what today’s weather is going to be.  
  
He doesn’t understand it. Couldn’t they easily check on their phones, on their own? But every morning, as everyone wakes up, comes a chiming chorus of “Thanks, Makoto.”  
  
It’s a good summary of the entire experience for him, really. Confusion. Realistically, he knows that this is how things are for people, people typically have friends, they have family, and they communicate—but to experience it, for the first time? To be included? It’s baffling. To be sharing your day, what makes you laugh, what makes you scared, what makes you cry—to do all of this, with other people, and then have reciprocation? How bizarre.  
  
“do u think that grass knows its gonna get cut?” What a silly question, and only half the chat responds, but it goes on for over an hour. And peppered throughout, randomly, there’s affirmations, even mid-argument, even after an I HATE YOU in all caps, there’s I love you, I love you guys, I love you the chat says, and it calls people out by name.  
  
Goro sends messages but they feel stiff.   
  
Can you imagine, what it is like to not have this, ever? It is the kind of solitude that would drive a wolf without a pack to don the clothes of a sheep to masquerade as one. It is how young ravens survive, kicked out by the adults they form gangs, roaming gangs of young birds that survive only because they have each other, and together they learn, together they make it through winter together, and it is only when they are good and ready do they leave and find a mate. But that youthful bond, the team that forms around them, that is essential for those birds, just as it is essential for humans.  
  
When you find something funny, you send it to someone too instead of just laughing at it by yourself? How weird is that for him. How strange. How isolated was I, really?  
  
He spends a lot of time with his fingers over the send button, nearly sending pictures of his lunch, pictures of a Morgana look-a-like, a joke he found online, but sharing? How do you teach those in solitary confinement how to share? How do you coax an abused, lonely bird to trust, to take crumbs from your hand? He is hoarding himself away under miles of fortress.  
  
He lies in bed and his finger hovers over the words that he’s written for over an hour.  
  
“Is anyone awake? I’m lonely.”  
  
He backspaces, deleting it and starting again.  
  
“I need help.”  
  
But he becomes frustrated at himself and deletes it too.  
  
They would only hate him if they knew the truth. They would never accept him. He only has one option.  
  
It hurts.

* * *

He smells of fruit, but fruit rots.

* * *

It’s funny—sickeningly funny, really—that Kurusu contains the character for rookery and that others find his soul a place to roost. Goro may have charisma, but Akira has a magnetism that he lacks. The answer is that Goro tries so hard to be perfect and it’s hard to like a person without any flaws, and flaws, oh Akira is ridden with them, knitted into his clothing, but he owns them, he ultimately owns himself. Goro doesn’t.  
  
“Who would you be,” Akira asks him, “if nobody was watching?”   
  
Goro looks up from his coffee, across the half-finished game that they’ve paused, to Akira, meticulously touching up his nails—this week, a pleasant pink, borrowed from Haru.  
  
“I’m sorry?”  
  
“If you could be who you wanted to be, without worry of what others thought, who would that person be, Goro?”  
  
It’s the first time he’s been addressed by his first name by him.  
  
The question is almost unfathomable. Who would you be without the influence of others, the demands of society, without pleasing the mysterious force of the collective culture? He has spent so long trying to be within the norm that he’s not sure who he would be without it. He has to think hard, longer than he’s ever thought about a question before, and ten minutes pass before he answers.  
  
“I’m not sure,” and at least he’s honest, “I really don’t know. I’ve always had this idea that it would be fun to see the world, to see other cultures, other ways of thinking in action, but that’s not really a matter of who I would be, now is it?”  
  
“Do you think you’d be the same as you are now?”  
  
He pauses again, but only for a couple of seconds, and smiles. “No, definitely not.”  
  
Akira caps the nail polish and admires his work. “Smart answer.”  
  
“What about you?”  
  
“Hm?”  
  
“Who would you be, if you were who you wanted?”  
  
“I am that person.”  
  
“Nothing would change?”  
  
“Oh, I’m still changing,” he takes a sip of his drink with his unpainted hand. “And everyone adjusts their behavior, somewhat, always. But overall, I’m who I want to be, I’m doing what _I want_ to do to the best of my ability, and I don’t feel ashamed of my actions, or what others think of me. So what if people at school give me weird looks, if they start false rumors? Why should I definite myself on the warped perceptions of others? I may not be a completely good man, but I am my own person.”  
  
“Isn’t that lonely?”  
  
“As long as you have others with you, people who truly care about you, it’s never lonely, even in the darkest of times.”  
  
That day’s cup of coffee tastes bitter from there on out.

* * *

The more he spends time around them, the more he feels like he has flowers growing out of his ribcage, that there are vines snaking up his bones, that after drought the desert blooms, and it is wonderful. He’s not sure if he considers them friends but he is certain that they don’t see him as one, for how could they, reasonably, love their blackmailer? They couldn’t possibly love him, but he feels like he is a part of the pack all the same—in flashes where he forgets who he is, moments where he thinks they forget too, as he is given praise freely, as he is treated fairly, high fives and smiles and laughter and inside jokes and bantering, getting irritated at one another but ultimately forgiving—it is intoxicating. There are some nights where he comes home from exploring the palace and he feels like his whole world is swirling, that he is still deep within the Metaverse, that it is all but a dream. A bird feasting on the slim pickings of shriveled fruits may not flight straight, faltering, falling, failing, before trying to right itself in drunkenness.  
  
He falters, falling, failing, but then reminds himself of his end goal.  
  
No matter how well he steels himself there’s a part of him that melts every time that Shido gives him praise. He tells himself that he doesn’t want it, that he doesn’t need that acknowledgement, but he holds onto each phrase closely, obsesses over it, and he needs more. It is like trying to deny that you need water—you can try, but you are lying to yourself.  
  
He remembers the absence of caregivers, being placed in front of the television and told to be good, be still. Television has been much more constant, much more of a parent, then anyone ever has. It is here where he learned the existence of heroes, of those who fight monsters and right wrongs. There are superheroes dressed in colorful suits in the context of children’s entertainment, there are humble people on the evening news with the subtitle listing them as a local hero for their actions, in media the good guys are always honored, held upon high, they are beloved and treasured and believed in. It is an absurd the amount of idolization that we force upon others, but it is exactly what Goro wants, what he believes that he needs. If only I lived in the world of television, they would see what a poor soul I am, what a good boy I am, and the narrative would reward me for my virtue. He daydreams about rescuing others from burning buildings, pulling dogs out of rivers, catching robbers and stopping crooks—it is an elaborate tapestry upon he writes the future in which he believes that he deserves, but he’ll never grow up to live it. Art may mimic life, but life is never art—it is a false equivalency.  
  
Television reflects life, but it is not life, it will never be life. But what is a child to do? A child that was raised to believe that if he follows the example of those cherished in the media, he will be finally loved just like them, he will be just like them, the retribution against those who hurt him will be swift and poetic and he will be flocked to in adoration.  
  
He is still a child.

* * *

“Do you know what your name reminds me of?” Akira smiles, on another night, another game. “Crow.”  
  
“I may have joked that I was a psychic to you once,” Goro smiles back, “but I really can’t read minds.”  
  
“Do you know the children’s song about the mother crow and her seven chicks? My mother used to sing it to me when I was young all the time.”  
  
“I’m… not.”  
  
This happens a lot, people assumes he knows the blessings of childhood, of all the songs and the games, but he doesn’t, no, not often, not all of them. He is a foreigner in his own culture at times, he feels like, and he can’t help but visibly grimace—a grimace that he immediately feels on his face and tries to suppress, because Akira is perceptive, and he’ll notice, but when he looks in Akira’s direction after squashing his own sadness, Akira is not paying attention to him. Or if he is, he is not making it obvious, smiling fondly, wandering through what must be a warm memory.  
  
“I’ll sing it for you,” he laughs softly, cleaning his throat.  
  
_Mother crow, why is it that you caw,  
Sitting on the mountain high?  
“It’s because I have seven children,_ _  
__Sweet and good as can be!”_ _  
  
__“They’re so cute, look how cute,” caws the good old mother crow.  
“Oh so cute, very cute,” she crows on and on._

 _“If you go up the mountainside  
And search for the highest tree  
You can find my bright-eyed children  
Sitting sweetly in their nest.”  
  
_ Goro can only laugh as Akira flourishes at the end of of the song and bows, as if his performance was worthy of admiration, clapping, bravo, bravo, and Akira pretends to pick up a bouquet of flowers and waves at the non-existing audience and their thunderous applause.  
  
“The tune sounds familiar, but I don’t think I knew the lyrics,” he says after Akira finishes his theatrics.  
  
“It’s a kind, lovely little song.”  
  
“It is.”  
  
“I can’t not look at crows and think about it, even when they’re digging through the garbage or eating trash. I think, once upon a time, that the crows were once small, cute children. It’s hard for me to not like them because of that. They’re just rowdy kids, going on adventures and causing havoc.”  
  
“I see.”  
  
“Reminds me of the group, honestly.”  
  
“A flock of troublemakers, you are for certain.”  
  
“That includes you, you know.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“You’re a part of the murder too, whether you like it or not, Mr. Crow.”  
  
And in that moment, Goro feels like Akira can see right through him.

* * *

If you’re cornered in the wild, there are only two options: you die, or you fight.  
  
Sometimes, even if you fight, you’ll end up dead anyway.  
  
But there is much more satisfaction in a defeated death than there is in a life you freely give up.  
  
He can’t surrender now. What would be the point of everything, if he laid down his weapons and said that he’s had enough? That he’s tired, that he just wants to be held and soothed to sleep, to a sleep that he can wake up from and realize it’s all been a bad dream? What would’ve been the point of the horrifying things he’s done up to this point, how would they be justified if he did not carry it all through to the end?   
  
It’s not possible, to just simply quit.  
  
He stares at his reflection in the mirror but after every murder it’s harder for him to find the image that he constructed of himself as a martyr, as a savior, serene and loved for taking sin away from the world. The Goro who looks back at him now looks tired, sorrowful, and conflicted.  
  
His game with Shido is coming to an end, and he’ll have his chance at checkmate, but he’s lost so many pieces already. Shido can sacrifice piece after piece without care, he has endless lackeys at his disposal, but Goro is playing it solo, and even though everything is going according to plan, he feels like he’s losing, that he’s destroying himself in the process, and that may very well be true.  
  
He says he is doing this in the name of justice, but justice is not always good.  
  
Justice is not always right.  
  
“I was wondering, do you really think that chess is a two person game?” asks Akira, on the evening of their final game.  
  
“What do you mean? There’s two players, right? So of course it would be a two person game.”  
  
“But what if you thought of it another way. If chess is a game of strategy, then the players are the strategists, right? And all the pieces themselves are meant to represent actual military units and positions of power. So essentially, the board is a battlefield, yeah?”  
  
“Are you arguing then that even though it’s a two player game, the game itself is multiplayer? At least, in a sense.”  
  
“Yeah, that’s a good way of putting it. A strategist cannot win the war by themselves, it takes a whole army in order to bring down an enemy. If you remove yourself from the picture, and watch a chess game unfold on its own—like, if you had a computer program play the game against itself—it would be as if the pieces are working together to win. Outside the board, sure, chess is a game for two players. But within the confines of the board, it’s really between two teams, each working as a collective.”  
  
“Interesting. I think that’s a very interesting thought. The game can only be won through the efforts of multiple people, working together to bring down their enemy, each bringing to the table their own strengths and weaknesses.”  
  
Goro brings his knight forward and smiles. “Check,” he says.  
  
“I think that’s part of the reason why I like this game so much,” and Akira smiles back, even as Goro corners him into retreat, “it’s much more a game of reality than fiction.”  
  
He is really going to miss him, so, so much.

* * *

People talk about the madness of ravens, of their twisted hearts and curved talons, but it is humans that are truly maddening.  
  
Goro takes the subway that morning and feels a coldness within him that even the crowds of people around him can’t stifle. He wonders if all great people feel this once, those historical figures who made tough choices and had to see it through to the end, be it tragedy or triumph. He always thought that those people must’ve been so certain, confident, but now he doubts if that is so. One can say that they are not afraid, that this is their life’s purpose, what they were brought into this world to do, but how much of that is bravado, the mask one puts on? He thinks about all those people, their famous speeches and words, a chanting cacophony of fearlessness—and then the jittering pit in his stomach. He’s not one of them, no matter how much he wants to be.  
  
The birds are coming back to roost collectively in their familiar trees for the winter.  
  
Crows have adapted around humanity, they are truly always around us, always watching, managing to thrive where many species cannot. In the absence of their company—if they fail to carve out a way of life among the cracks in the foundation—it is then that we will know that we are truly doomed.  
  
If we reach that point, humanity will rot alone, and honestly, we probably deserve to.  
  
It’s his stop.  
  
He exits and hesitates after he steps onto the subway platform.  
  
He’s made his choice.  
  
He’ll betray them tonight.  
  
He’ll put on his best poker face.  
  
He’s unsure of how it’ll all go. Sae’s palace is truly appropriate. It’s a roulette. Anything can happen once you make your move.  
  
“End of the line,” he can hear the announcer’s voice echo from the train car behind him.  
  
Checkmate.

**Author's Note:**

> Some of the notes in the fic are pretty obvious and kind of directly talk about stuff, so here's some of the things that may not be as obvious.
> 
> -Rook of course is a play on the chess piece rook and the bird species Rook.
> 
> \- As a group, corvids have complex social structure and behavior and tend to occur in groups or flocks at least for part of their life history. They also probably have some form of language with grammar structure and syntax and all that good stuff, and that's already been proven with some bird species already. 
> 
> -A lot of bird species will form massive flocks in the winter, particularly in areas where it gets colder during the winter, but crows are especially known for this due to their size and the numbers of them that flock together. It is not uncommon to see hundreds of them at once roosting together. They do this primarily to keep warm and "safety in numbers" sort of deal, as well as communicate with each other at the end of the day. 
> 
> -The scene with the adult crows beating the fledgling crow to death is something that really happens in the wild. In the short time I've been at the wildlife rehabilitation center where I work, we have had several cases in which people have brought in young American Crows that they found being attacked at and fussed at by other crows. In all cases, something was gravely wrong with the baby that it would never be able to recover from in the wild—for example, complete blindness, or, as the fic says, the bird is literally being eaten alive by maggots and the infestation is severe. This behavior is not exclusive to corvids, but given their complex social structure (ex: kid crows stay around their parents for a long time like human kids do, sometimes helping to raise their younger siblings) it kind of takes on a new dimension I think. 
> 
> -Corvids holding vigil is a reference to the "magpie funerals" which is a recently described behavior of magpies doing odd things in reaction to a dead flock member (standing around it silently as a group, placing objects on top of the body, etc). 
> 
> -Smelling of fruit and later the line "he smells of fruit, but fruit rots" is a reference to the scientific name of the Rook, _Corvus frugilegus_ ("Fruit-gathering Raven").
> 
> -Goro singing happy birthday alone to himself is a nod to Rooks (and other corvids) singing to themselves in captivity even if they are completely solitary. 
> 
> -Mirrors and reflections, Eurasian Magpies are one of the only animal species capable of self-recognizing themselves in a mirror.
> 
> -Crows/Ravens were associated with death not only for their scavenging behavior, but there are also stories of them following soldiers into battle because they learned that battle meant death, and by following them they would get a free meal once the battle was over.
> 
> -Kurusu contains the character 栖 which can mean nest, den, or rookery (a roost or colony of birds, originally used for rooks).
> 
> -Birds can become drunk from eating half-rotting fruit that has fermented, especially during the winter and spring. I have seen drunk crows attempting to fly, and it is hilarious.
> 
> -Nanatsu no Ko (七つの子) is the name of the song that Akira sings. The version in the fic is not a direct translation and I wrote it with the idea in mind to keep a similar syllable amount to the Japanese version while keeping mostly the same meaning, while also trying to make it sound not awkward.
> 
> -Crows are interesting in that their ability to live along side us and with us is unique, especially when most of our bird species are declining and are unable to adapt as fast to habitat fragmentation/destruction, city lights during migration/windows, introduction of invasive species/outdoor pets, climate change, and other human-caused activity. I think that if they can no longer live alongside us and start declining, we've truly have doomed our planet and ourselves at that point (certain birds (and or high bird biodiversity) are a used litmus test to accurately predict environment health).


End file.
